Fractured Axel

Having bought this kite last year out of curiosity and perhaps, due to a little hype, I have now had some time to put it in perspective.

Package
The Mirage comes in a neat and sturdy half length bag in a heavy duty nylon with instructions screen printed on the rear. Included with the kite are a set of 60ft dyneema lines complete with Prism straps. The kite itself is fitted in, leading edges folded and held wrapped by a velcro strap.

construction
The Mirage is part of Prism's standard range and made in Far east, filling an advertised role as a full size kite for novice-intermediate flyers to progress with. The sail is made from a carrington like polyester with glued, zig zag stitched seams and adding to the kites graphic there are also three black stripes running longitudinally on each side of the sail that are soley glued in place. Trailing edges are neatly oversewn with tape and have no leech line. The frame consists of 6mm carbon rod for the leading edges, spine and top spreader and Skyshark P300 tubes for the lower spreaders. The sail is held taught by 4 stand-offs in 3mm carbon rod and the whole lot is kept in place with APA fittings, there is no tick line provided. The spine is housed in a neat webbing nose that has been smoothly heat cut to avoid line snags and at the tail end by a "Kinetic Disipator". The latter basically functions as an elastic shock absorber allowing the spine to flex under impact and the centre cross-over to ride forward taking the sting out of unplanned nose down arrivals. Leading edges are made not from dacron but a lighter and rather more flimsy polyester and have slots cut out to accomodate the chunky external leading edge ferrule. It is this feature that allows the kite to be folded down easilly into its half size bag. Overall the construction is sound but it has to be said that it is not of the Seattle standard of the Elite Range, then again, this is an all in budget package retailing at about £89 and including a Prism instructional DVD.

Flight
The Mirage has a claimed wind range of 4-20mph and this is about right though as the top of the range is reached there is considerable frame flex. At the bottom end of the range the kite is certainly flyable but looses a lot of height in any manoeuver and generally feels a bit heavy. Tuning options allow the bridle to be set as a classic 3 point or as a turbo with a 7cm leg joining the upper and lower outhauls which adjust over a 5cm range to vary the kite's angle of attack. The only real gripe here is the odd choice of clips instead of a larks head line attatchement!
Flying firstly with the bridle set high and as a 3 point the kite tracked very smoothly and genuinely held onto a line with no apparent oversteer. Switching to the turbo option lost little in precision but helped in the freestyle departement. All the old school tricks are there and easily accomplished, helped out in no small way by this kite's latent abillity to pancake very flat indeed. 540's are a sintch anywhere in the window while axles are moderately paced allowing easy axle-fade combinations. Cascades tend to be rather slow with a deep 1/2 axle and a pronounced height loss unless pre-popped as if doing a fountain. Back group tricks are also possible with a nose deep, medium paced backspin and a very even flic flac that allows fades to be set up at will. Once in the fade the kite is not that stable and backspins of Lateral Rolls need to started quickly. However turtles are very stable indeed though lazy sues have a high propensity to snag lines( maybe an M trick line would help here). Though I am sure more capable flyers could extract Jacob's Ladders and Full Monties from this kite I have to say it elluded me. In contrast Wrap ups were easy aided by that Pancaking tendancy but the lack of stoppers or yoyo lines meant that wrapped lines slid down the leading edges almost to the tips rendering the kite unrecoverable ab out 50% of the time. Oddly there are some holes in the leading edge sleeve at about an ideal siting for stoppers and some markings on the upper out haul perhaps for a yoyo line? Nothing is alluded to in the kite's
instructions but presumably the options are there to modify and tweak.
Ground work is pretty sound with all the usual recoveries in evidence, though the Sleeping Beauty needs a fast sharp tug to ensure success once rotation has been initiated. Due to the soggy nature of the flying site I cannot say whether a Dead launch was possible but I would guess it could be, given the amount of flex in the frame.

[/u]Conclusion[u]
The Mirage represents a good full size kite to learn on in an attractive and well priced package, it has a good all-round performance including a fairly extensive trick repertoire allied with solid consistent handling. However it does not poscess the finesse of Prisms Elite stable, rather it accomplishes its routine in a "no frills workman like manner" occasionally looking a little lumpish but for this price you can't really complain. Additionally there is perhaps a nieche for this kite as a "work a day" practise tool for the established freestyler to thrash out new skills with. In this arena however, the Mirage faces some very stiff oposition, though without the complete package cache Prism have put together. In essence this is a good intermediary between starter kites and high end offerings with just enough about it to entertain accomplished flyers. Very good for the money but perhaps a touch over egged in the hype?

I am not going to rush out and buy a Mirage, but this is a great review.
Thanks Miles

I own a Mirage and would like to add a few things.

Sail became fuzzy after a few assembly at the point where lower and upper leading edge connects. It's bad.
Little higher wind can cause strange noise of sail. Sounds like a B52 (you decide if bad or not).

After all it's lovely. I had the luck to fly a Quantum Pro at the same time when it was a low-wind day. I did not really feel that the Mirage is much harder to keep in the air than the QPro. And it is a big thing compared to their price tags

Thank you for the review!